The goals of this study were 1) to examine the features of adolescents’ disclosure and advice-seeking behavior about peer dilemmas; and 2) to examine the maternal parenting predictors of disclosure and advice-seeking behavior and the adolescent social correlates of these behaviors. Further, this study sought to examine adolescent advice-seeking as a potential mediator of the relations between maternal parenting characteristics and adolescent social outcomes (friendship quality and interpersonal competence). One hundred and one mother-child dyads were assessed when the children were approximately 10-12 years of age (M = 11.0) and 74 were re-assessed when the children were approximately 12-14 years of age (M = 12.8). Mothers provided reports of their parenting characteristics at Time 1 and Time 2, while adolescents provided reports of their disclosure at Time 1, and disclosure, advice-seeking, personality and social outcomes at Time 2.
Results showed the adolescents disclosed and sought advice from their mothers moderately often across a variety of situations involving their close friends. The reasons adolescents chose to disclose, not disclose, and seek advice were discussed. Regression analyses showed that neither mothers’ positive nor their negative parenting characteristics were predictors of adolescent disclosure. Mothers’ positive parenting characteristics (including perspective-taking, warmth and positive responsiveness to children’s negative emotions) did significantly predict adolescent advice-seeking, for girls but not boys, after controlling for adolescent personality and maternal interpersonal competence. With respect to adolescent social outcomes, adolescent advice-seeking was significantly related to friendship quality, but not interpersonal competence, after controlling for adolescent personality and disclosure. There was no evidence for the role of advice-seeking as a mediator of the relations between parenting and adolescent social outcomes.
The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the importance of determining the conditions that encourage adolescents to seek advice from their parents when they encounter difficult situations involving their friends, and the value parental advice has for adolescent social success.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/24294 |
| Date | 09 April 2010 |
| Creators | Almas, Alisa |
| Contributors | Grusec, Joan |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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